Boudica at the Globe

September 19, 2017

This production directed by Eleanor Rhodes,is the last programmed by Emma Rice in her tenure as Artistic Director and as such will be the last in a while to use the full range of emotional and atmospheric possibilities available with electric theatre lights and sound amplification. So for ten nights only we will get the glory of Forbes Masson singing ‘London Burning’ to a bopping sea of groundlings. On a more considered note it has been fascinating for me in my first (and perhaps only ?) experience of designing for the Globe after so many years working on and developing new thrust spaces in Stratford for the RSC. The Globe for me was always a touchstone, not for it’s authentic practices , but for the realisation that, for Shakespeare especially, but theatre in general works best when the actors and audience share the same air in one room, rather than being divided by imaginary walls and prosceniums. The direct communication and immediacy to the live presence of an audience were what we took from the Globe into the designs of the RST and Courtyard theatres.

So working in the space itself I brought back what I have learnt in the RST , creating a central walkway and two side voms to allow the action to flow through the space and get the actors entering on strong diagonals rather than always coming from the back approaching the audience and then having to turn their backs to exit. One scene can pile in on the next , creating energy between the scenes and removing the need for scene changes.

But what to do about the strong aesthetic of the Globe, it’s painted columns, neo-Elizabthian decor and decorative ceiling of the Gods. How does design work in that space? I decided to keep it very simple and bold to create a plain background against which the actors would read; a golden wooden stockade, symbolic of the dual images of Rome’s power over ancient Britain, economic wealth and military might. With the whipping of Boudica, a single plank was removed from this wall, unwittingly beginning the unpicking of the stockade, which then begins to fall in the first battle. At the interval the fallen planks were suspended above the space , further fracturing the environment and then lowered to give an abstract forest at the end. I left the red and gold columns of the Theatre unclad as they seem a perfect symbol of Rome and I picked up on the red and gold colour scheme in the Roman’s costumes too.